


Theirs

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:52:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They couldn't be around each other every hour of every day.  They disagreed often exactly like brothers, but they loved each other.  This love was instant, unconditional, and based on their journey as actors and men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theirs

Elijah was different back then--not in a negative way or even in an irritatingly youthful way, just different. He excited and confused Sean, who had never bonded with a co-star the way he was bonding with Elijah. There were moments when Sean chalked it up to getting giddy over how profound Sam, Frodo, and their journey seemed. He wallowed selfishly and perhaps superficially in the glee of landing a role that he could pontificate about left, right, and center, but most of the time he accepted that his relationship with Elijah had very little to do with Middle Earth or hobbits. He simply respected and adored Elijah and wanted Elijah to feel the same way about him.

But they were never best friends. Their relationship went from strangers to co-workers to brothers, skipping that typical step between the final two. 

They couldn't be around each other every hour of every day. They disagreed often exactly like brothers, but they loved each other. This love was instant, unconditional, and based on their journey as actors and men. 

Sean learned quickly that he could not compete with the peer-love that Elijah felt for those friends that he could stay out all night with; Sean never had to, because he had Elijah on a different level. This exposed itself during odd moments--a quirk in Elijah's cheek and a swivel of Sean's eyes and a whole silent conversation passed between them, an in-joke replayed, and Dom or Orlando or Bean would look at them and ask what the hell the rest of them had just missed. If you squinted and tilted your head to the left just a little, it passed as brotherly love. 

Sean embraced this. It was wonderful. 

And then it began to change. 

Sean's strong affections for Elijah evolved into possessiveness, and soon enough that possessiveness blossomed with impulses. 

One evening he had too many glasses of red wine and watched Elijah dance with men and women in some hole in the wall pub in Wellington and for the first time he felt jealousy. Physical feelings cropped up in the wake of that night, like debris after an avalanche.

To assume that Elijah felt the same way on all the same levels would have been ridiculous. Besides, Sean often had these strange layered feelings for people; a mixture of platonic and not-platonic elements that added up to something that was neither here nor there. But whereas in the past these feelings faded after a time, with Elijah they grew. The feelings sharpened his attention, made him notice, made him watch.

There was no better time to watch than right after make-up at the end of the day when Elijah was scrubbed down to reddened skin and tired, drooping eyes, when Sean supported him with one arm as they hobbled outside to their respective transportation. They had made a ritual of their hug and kiss goodbye, a silly boyish thing, a tight embrace--always Sean's arms around his waist and back and Elijah's around his neck, always, and always would be, years later--and a firm kiss on the cheek. Goodnight, and goodnight. 

The longing to do it again, and more, started to eat at Sean. He didn't understand this wanting but he accepted it. Sean was at that point still a slave to whatever emotion was passing through his brain at any given second. He had trouble sorting out which were positive and which were negative.

And they brushed. They brushed and it would've been so much less dangerous if they hadn't. Elijah was a constant nudge and press against Sean's side, hands, face, back. His presence became the sum total of every time their bodies touched and Sean both hated and loved this; hated because it overrode the everyday, loved because it inflated the importance of his private thoughts, gave them a framework upon which to build fantasies. 

Did Elijah see this, in any way? Did he linger?

Sean began to think so. He analyzed this belief immediately. Theories spun in his mind--daddy issues, loneliness, lack of permanent female attachment, simple youth--but at the end of the day Elijah was draped around him, all yellowed fingertips and slender, pale limbs. 

There was something silently desperate about the way that Elijah relied on him.

*

He dropped by Elijah's one evening to return a borrowed something or other and asked if there was a reason why they hadn't gone out to eat recently, or rehearsed in the evenings, or done, well, anything, together.

Open went Elijah's mouth, and then close. Sean fidgeted in the entryway, uncomfortably warm in a jacket too heavy for the evening, and Elijah exhaled and asked him if he wanted a beer.

In the kitchen, they drank silently, and then Elijah slid the bottle away and scratched a hand through his unruly hair.

"Um," he said, and meant, _what the hell are we going to do_ , and spun his beer in circles on the tabletop.

With absolutely no premeditation, Sean leaned across the table kissed Elijah on the mouth. Elijah moved to stand but didn't quite make it, his chair squeaking across the tile. 

When the kiss ended, they stared at one another. "Shit," Elijah sighed, slouching and letting his head dip down between frustrated hands. 

"I wanted to," Sean admitted, forcing the words when his instinct was shouting at him to close the door he'd just thrown open. "I've wanted to for a while." 

"This can't happen again," Elijah said, sounding less than convinced.

"I don't know--"

"Don't be fucking ridiculous."

Sean felt numb. Where he would normally agree he found himself silently disagreeing, for reasons which were out of place. Christine, Ali, and the children that he knew--sitting there even with the taste of Elijah's mouth still on his--would come. A wave of selfish desire, almost childishly impertinent. _I want this. Why can't I have it?_

"I think I should go," he said, finally, when that wave grew too strong to ignore. He was going to say something foolish. Even if Elijah had wanted to kiss him, that didn't mean Elijah wanted it to become something.

Elijah walked him to the door. Sean stared at the pale feet poking out from the bottoms of Elijah's jeans, and then lifted his eyes.

"Get some sleep," he said, as he often did, and Elijah smiled and nodded, and he went home.

*

It was cold for the season, and Elijah had for once beaten Sean out to the cars after make-up. The sky was black and speckled grandly overhead, and the space between the trailers and the parking area was wide as an ocean in Sean's mind as he searched for Elijah.

He found Elijah leaning against his own car, headphones on, hands shoved deep into his pockets, hopping to keep warm and humming to the music. When he saw Sean he smiled and tipped the headphones off, arms already opening even as Sean stepped forward to claim the traditional hug and kiss. 

"We're going snowboarding tomorrow," Elijah said. "You in?"

"Nah, family stuff," Sean replied, letting his hands fall to Elijah's sides. Feeling bold, he left them there at Elijah's hips and didn't step back from the hug. Elijah's arms stayed around his elbows.

"S'cool," Elijah said, shrugging. "Buy you a beer?"

"Yeah." They got into the car. "Who else're we picking up?"

"Drunk bastards we work with are probably already there."

Sean laughed and didn't press the issue. When did they ever end up alone after work? 

After a couple beers each, Elijah drove them home. They lingered in the driveway, and Sean quizzed him about the snowboarding trip.

"Don't fall off a mountain or anything," Sean said, grinning as he got out of the car. "Hey, when was the last time you had your equipment checked?"

Elijah laughed and took his foot off the break. "Would you look at the time."

"I'll call you," Sean threatened, returning the laugh as the car floated from the curb.

*

Elijah complained of numb toes for weeks afterward. Sean was only too happy to oblige him foot rubs--once the hobbit feet stink was washed off, of course. It became yet another ritual.

One evening, Sean was sure that Elijah had fallen asleep mid-massage but he kept rubbing anyway; he was content to listen to Elijah's breathing. 

Elijah's eyelids lifted.

"Have to keep you walking, don't I?" Sean asked, sensitive to some unspoken question. He curled one hand around the girth of Elijah's foot. Almost as an afterthought, Sean noticed that Elijah was half-hard in his shorts. He waited a moment and then pulled away, not wanting Elijah to think he'd noticed.

Elijah casually stretched and stood and got into his coat and shoes. Together they wandered outside, hugged, kissed, and went their separate ways.

*

Sometime later, Sean went snowboarding with Billy and Orlando and came home equally frozen. Elijah offered to reciprocate, but Sean declined.

"We can't switch class roles this late in the game," he explained.

But he missed the freedom of that sort of touching. The thought of Elijah with an erection was beginning to creep its way into his mind with disturbing frequency.

How in the hell he managed to keep this below Christine's radar was anyone's guess. She was sharp as steel and knew him to the core. All he had to do was blink too fast and she'd tell him what the matter was. 

But New Zealand had changed the scope of their lives and between being exhausted and learning new things and making sure Ali's life went smoothly, neither of them had much time to observe one another. Sean spent about an equal amount of time between Elijah (filming) and Christine (exhausted evenings, dinners, quiet sex), and the better portion of his attention was, naturally, always on filming (Elijah).

He found the balance easier on days when Christine was on set with the baby, which was fairly often. She liked the business as much as Sean did, and her forays into editing and directing were solid investments. Half the time, she was what kept Sean going in regards to the project. So her presence was encouraging and always served to remind him of what he had and of what he should be grateful for. He could glow in the direction of her and the baby and enjoy the familiar feeling of having them set the boundaries of his entire world. Though his emotions were turning odd, his pride never wavered. 

_See that? I did that._

But then Elijah would turn and look for him through a crowd of orcs, or shout his name across a field, or drag him into a trailer for lunch, and that would become his world completely. It was like the beginning of a romance with none of the possible culmination and all the love in the world for Christine and the baby could not make the disconnection any less bitter.

He tried. He tried every day in every way to reject the growing attraction and embrace his family and, at every turn, it was not enough.

*

They were settled in the backseat of a transport van, half asleep from the rocking motion of the vehicle and the warmth of the cab. Sean wavered in and out, inching closer to Elijah's body with every conscious shift and then falling back asleep, until he woke up fully after about an hour and a half of non-stop driving to find Elijah curled up against his side. His right hand fell to Elijah's thigh, gripping, as he looked around. Outside the van everything was black as pitch.

Elijah gave a great squirm and sigh and Sean's hand slipped between his knees. The driver wasn't watching them and the techie in the passenger seat was asleep.

Sean pulled away and sat back and closed his eyes, only to wake up yet again twenty minutes later with his head tilted to the left, jostling with the motion of the van. Elijah's face was no more than an inch from his, tilted right. He could feel Elijah's breath on his nose and mouth.

And then Elijah's eyes opened, and Sean felt something in his gut twist. All there was to it was to close his eyes and lean forward and he did, and felt Elijah's mouth against his. Their lips parted and then came together again. Elijah's tongue dipped tentatively into his mouth.

Their mouths made a wet noise and Sean jerked away, eyes ticking to the rear view mirror. The driver hadn't noticed.

"Hey," Elijah whispered, nervous, unsure. Just as unsettled, Sean licked his lips and sat back. Elijah said his name, then, but he turned away.

*

They stayed up for a drink and a light meal with their traveling companions; long enough to take the edge off of what happened in the van. But back in their respective rooms it didn't seem quite so far away.

The urge to move--to do something, to declare a sentiment--took hold, and Sean walked down the hall and knocked on Elijah's door. He was sure he would figure out which speech to give once the door opened. Elijah had a cigarette in his right hand and was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. He was pale and softly underdeveloped.

"I shouldn't've," Elijah said, by way of greeting, motioning with his cigarette. 

"Damn right. Isn't this a non-smoking room?"

Elijah snorted and turned, crossing the room to open a window. "God love ya." His expression grew serious again. "Tired. Don't feel like talking about it. Honestly."

Sean felt blood pool in his face. He mentally revised his speech once, twice, and then exhaled. He nodded.

Elijah came forward, nudging him toward the door. "G'night."

He made a very reluctant exit.

*

They were in a flooded parking lot behind the studio building and the fake marsh plants tickled Sean's ankles obnoxiously with every step. He had a hell of an itch just below the ankle line of his foot prosthetic and he wouldn't be able to scratch it for another five hours or more.

_Fucking hell._

They re-did the shot to capture the different stages of Andy's performance and they re-did the shot a dozen times more to get what Peter wanted. 

On days like this when everything seemed to go one step forward and three steps back, Sean felt incredibly moody and overemotional. Normally, Elijah would take the piss out of him every ten minutes to keep the tension down, but today Elijah too was in a foul mood--possibly something to do with being half-drowned every take--and the checks-and-balances aspect of their relationship was out of whack. Elijah went very quiet and pale when stressed; Sean was prone to outbursts and artistic differences with his director. 

There was no such thing as stopping on a Jackson set.

 _Damn Dom's yoga breathing to the seventh circle of hell_ , Sean thought. Peter, off screen, shouted, "Mr. Frodo!"

He watched Elijah come up from the water for the thirteenth time. Techies rushed in with foil and blanket covers. Droplets cascaded down the tendrils of his wig and his drawn face. Sean fought down the customary urge to shoo them all away and care for Elijah himself. 

He longed for the words _check the gate_ with every fiber of his being. 

He wanted to go home with Elijah or take Elijah home with him, as he wanted most days. This had happened only a handful of times. If Elijah did come home with him, it was because Christine (already onset with them) had voiced an invitation for dinner. Half the time Elijah begged off and grabbed take-away with the boys. Sean never took it personally (except for those times when he did).

Elijah's place, on the other hand, was rarely empty and if it was he was in a coma-like sleep, and no desire on Sean's part was strong enough to interrupt him getting the rest he needed. 

Sean wanted it still, even as he hauled Ali against his elbow and kissed her hair and took Christine's hand with his free one. 

He watched Elijah across the lot, still looking damp, raise a hand in goodnight. Christine and Ali waved back enthusiastically, and Sean followed after a beat of hesitation.

This was how things really were.

*

One evening after putting Ali to bed, straightening her room, and tossing her clothes in the hamper, Sean went downstairs for a well-deserved beer. As he went for an equally deserved second, his phone rang, and Elijah was on the other line.

"Hey," Elijah said, "can I swing by and grab a sandwich on my way home? I'm exhausted."

"And I'm the nearest deli?" Sean asked, grinning. 

"Something like that," Elijah replied. "See you in a few."

Twenty minutes later Elijah came through the side door, all nighttime air and cigarette smell. There were bags under his eyes and a general pale tint to his face, but he looked okay otherwise. He hugged Sean and then helped himself to sandwich fixings.

"You want?" he asked, halfway through his first sandwich, but Sean declined.

They were very used to each other and had little need for social niceties; Sean left Elijah to his late supper and went to sprawl out on the couch. The last time Elijah had dropped by this late he had let himself out quietly (leaving an obscene note on Sean's coffee mug that was thankfully removed before Christine noticed it), but the absence of Sean's better half in the house obviously piqued his curiosity. He went looking for Sean.

"She finally wise up and ditch you?"

Sean laughed, sitting up. "Ran off with an orc."

"Can't trust those fuckers any farther than you can throw 'em," Elijah said. "And the munchkin?"

"Asleep. Being a hobbit, I've heard, is very exhausting."

Elijah sat at the opposite end of the couch. "Was she in costume today?" He hadn't seen them after lunch.

"Only for an hour or so, but it wears her out." Sean smiled. "Chris is at the studio. She wanted to stay behind and play with some stuff they just got in this week. New cutting software, very state of the art."

Silence settled. They looked at each other once, and Elijah shifted and glanced away. He should go; they both knew that. Being alone was a bad idea and since their last encounter Sean had done a very good job of avoiding these situations. He should have told Elijah that Christine wasn't home when he had called, but the idea hadn't come to mind. Their encounters had been so few and far in between that he honestly forgot about them half the time; they were like vivid dreams, best left theoretical.

It was hard not to look at Elijah, though. He was milk-cream folded up in dark colors--a fitted t-shirt and a pair of hopelessly worn jeans. His hair was smoothed back but sticking up in several places. 

Elijah stood, stretched, picked at some glue stuck behind his ear and announced, "I'm going to sleep in tomorrow."

"That a promise?" Sean stood and took a couple steps toward the door, relieved that that would be that.

"Yep," Elijah murmured, bumping their sides together, one hand traveling the back of Sean's head. "Night."

Sean let go, smiling. "Night." He didn't wait to hear the door click or Elijah's car start; he turned and went straight for the stairs. A tangle of toys steps delayed him and it was only when he shut the lid of Ali's toy bin that he realized Elijah had come back into the house. 

"What's up?" Sean asked, honestly wondering if Elijah had left something behind. It wouldn't be the first time. Or the tenth, for that matter. 

Elijah stalked forward purposefully and stopped only when their chests touched. He took the back of Sean's neck and pulled them together mouth-first. Sean made a noise and tried to pull away but Elijah's grip was tight. 

He gave in, shuddering, and kissed back. His cock twitched in his sweatpants, his heartbeat stuttered, and a gear switched; all at once he wanted a moment to step away and think. He was shocked at how quickly his body had responded.

Panting, he put a few inches between them. "But you said--"

"My advice is fucking bullshit," Elijah replied, and kissed him again, muffling the laughter that came in response. 

They maneuvered until Elijah was pinned against a wall. They kissed, wet and fast, until both were out of breath and pushing against each other. Sean pulled back just to watch Elijah groan and lean forward. 

"Fuck, come here," he said, pulling at Sean's shirt. 

Sean kissed at the soft crook of Elijah's neck, bit carefully, then sucked, hard, and felt Elijah's body push into his. Elijah's throat clenched; Sean grinned, sucking at a velvety earlobe before licking the tip of his tongue around the ridge of Elijah's ear.

And then, like a bucket of ice water upturned above them, came the noise of the garage door opening. They moved apart. Elijah fumbled for the keys he'd dropped on the floor.

They hesitated by the door, not wanting to prolong the goodbye, not wanting to ignore it, but in the end Elijah just ducked out and Sean watched him go. It was better for Christine to chat him up on his way out than to catch them inside together, looking guilty.

*

The following week, they made out against the dryer in Sean's laundry room for the three minutes that it took Christine to locate the right laundry detergent and come back. They told her that they were going to meet the guys, but instead went back to Elijah's and made out some more on his sofa.

Sean jerked Elijah off on that sofa; he had never touched another man's cock before. Elijah sucked two of Sean's fingers into his mouth and Sean frantically rubbed his erection into the couch cushions and came in his pants for the first time in years. They went back and forth this way for weeks, exchanging handjobs like frat boys. It didn't even feel like sex. It felt like a frantic game. It satisfied Sean's possessive, hungry impulses and he assumed that it felt the same for Elijah.

Observations of Elijah--strictly sexual ones--were strange at first. This happened in stages: Elijah would do something completely innocent and Sean would find it sexy. Elijah would notice this and repeat the behavior until he was sure of what sort of response he was getting. 

Sean re-learned arousal. He had to; Elijah didn't fit in the space he had already developed for those feelings.

One evening Barrie held a production party at his house. It was the first time Elijah and Sean had attended a party together without Christine and the baby along. They got drunk as fast as they could, stumbled up to one of the guest rooms intending to fuck, finally, and then passed out fully clothed on top of the blankets.

The next morning, when Sean could manage to tilt his head, he saw Elijah blinking rapidly at the ceiling.

"We can't do anything right."

Elijah winced and croaked, "Quieter, please." He squinted. "Fuck."

They were silent for a moment, and then:

"Are you glad we didn't--"

"Are you?"

Elijah shifted. The bed creaked. "I don't know." He cringed. "I'm going to stand up very, very slowly. I'll try not to vomit on you."

They were miserable for the rest of the weekend.

*

"I've got poly--poly what's it--up my ass."

"I've got it in my eyeballs."

"I've got it _in my brain_."

Everyone glared at Orlando. Getting to walk on top of the "snow" as opposed to through it hadn't won him any sympathy votes, which usually meant he had to make the alcohol-and-snack-runs. In Sean's opinion it was a light punishment.

This was a typical end to a typical evening. The usual mixture of contentment and regret--Sean loved these people but never felt as if he fit as well as they did. 

Viggo drove everyone home, ending with dropping Sean and Elijah off at Elijah's place. Sean had already called Christine and told her that he was planning on drinking and didn't want to drive. 

The rub was that he had lied, and that was what made his gut twist as he followed Elijah inside. He hadn't touched a drop, and neither had Elijah. They'd actually planned this; to stay sober, to be the last two to be dropped off, the lame excuse to Viggo about going over that morning's re-writes, everything.

Sean was the sort of guy who felt guilty even when he shouldn't. 

That night? He should have, and did.

The monkey wrench was a wanting so sharp that it felt as if it were tearing his guts up. There was an entire world between Elijah and him, and it was giving out a siren call like none he'd ever heard. If he turned his back on it, he would never know what it held. That lingering "what if" would haunt him for the rest of his life. 

Every step toward the bedroom felt heavy and difficult, like walking through sand. At the threshold, Elijah shrugged off his jacket and turned.

"Don't. I know you're--just, don't. Okay?"

Sean felt a twist inside his chest, and he smiled. "Okay."

*

First-time sex--proper sex with foreplay and complete nudity and penetration--with another man was everything and nothing that Sean expected it to be. It was strange and sticky and non-linear and terrifying. It was embarrassing and brilliant and also problematic, because while lying against Elijah's damp back trying to catch his breath, he realized he was in love with Elijah.

He had never done something that so grossly contradicted the majority of his life and yet at the same time seemed perfect.

It was strange to think these thoughts at all, when he had just come inside Elijah's wiry, tight body three minutes ago. It was cliched, but feeling their bodies move in that primal rhythm had flipped a switch that handjobs at the back of the trailer during lunch break simply could not touch.

Elijah protested when he shifted away. "Stay. Like it."

Sean flushed. Exhausted as he was, his cock twitched at Elijah's words. He pressed his lips to Elijah's shoulder, reveling in the scent of sex and satisfaction between them. He wanted Elijah again, as soon as he could manage, and the love surged up inside his chest, an unsettling wave of sloppy emotion. 

"Love you," he said, softly, into the back of Elijah's sweat-speckled neck.

"Love you, too," Elijah replied, and it sounded honest and perfect and the same way it always sounded when he said it (and he said it often). 

It was not a declaration of monogamy or emotional intention, it was just a statement of the way things were. It was a love based on convenience and friendship. It demanded no change. It worked too well. It was too fucking good to be true.

Elijah eventually parted them and turned, taking Sean by the damp tendrils of hair at his temples, and kissed the thoughts clean out of his head.

*

Floodgates parted, so to speak, there was little to drag Sean's thoughts from Elijah and, again, the feeling seemed mutual. He was on creative auto-pilot at work, there was no change there, and the majority of his time after work was still spent with his family. While with Christine and the baby, he had no desire to be elsewhere. His feelings for the life he had hadn't change, but when he was around Elijah or even when Elijah was in his home he could not stop his mind from drifting.

He'd be spooning peas onto Ali's plate and look over at Elijah's neck and spot the blossom of red just beneath a collar and he'd turn red, knowing he'd put that there just hours before. He'd skirt between his wife and Elijah to fetch coffee mugs and catch the bend of Elijah's lower back and see it naked and alive with sweat under his palms in his mind's eye. He nurtured a near-manic obsession with Elijah's mouth, and anything that involved it or Elijah speaking drove him to distraction.

It didn't help that Elijah seemed just as seamlessly detached about the wrongness of their situation as he was. Elijah instigated their encounters nine out of ten times, driving him back into side rooms or trailers or bathrooms or anywhere with walls and a secured entrance. Before he could say "Elijah, wait" (not that he would have) he had hands all over him and a hot, silky mouth on his, working a magic that he was completely enthralled by. It had nothing to do with skill; Elijah wasn't a very good kisser, in all honesty. But that didn't seem matter. 

They took every opportunity that was handed to them to get lost in each other, which seemed at the end of the first six months of shooting to be too few. Very rarely could Frodo and Sam wander off alone. Even when on location with just Andy, there was no lack of people--crew, "making of" cameras, friends, and family--that demanded their attention at any given hour.

They never discussed this. To acknowledge that there were moments when they wanted nothing more than for the world to go away and leave the two of them alone would imply that they preferred each other over everyone else. Strictly speaking, that wasn't so. Not so strictly speaking, there were moments when it almost felt that way. 

They went weeks sometimes without even looking at each other sideways and then suddenly, due to pure happy chance, Elijah would be alone and have nothing scheduled. He'd call Sean in a rush of breath and Sean, amazingly alone and also have nothing scheduled, would fall over his own feet to shower, check to make sure the lube and condoms hadn't dissolved inside their packaging, and fall like a mad thing into bed.

It was a tiny physical addiction and that was the one part of it that Sean did not doubt was mutual--Elijah was insatiable when given the time and the energy to be so. They'd never discussed sexuality, had never even had to ponder it as it had nothing to do with their relationship, but it was clear that Elijah loved every aspect of what they did, loved being fucked slow and hard for as long as Sean could go. He loved any combination of hands, mouths, and their cocks, honestly, and eventually even Sean had to quit protesting that he was too fat, too unattractive to even enjoy this kind of thing, because Elijah would not hear a word of it.

The before and after was what should have been troubling. The snuggling and kissing (which improved dramatically, by the way), the laced hands and the whispered affection, it all should have struck a deep chord of misplaced emotion somewhere in Sean's soul, but like everything they were and did together, it didn't.

*

Most of the time, sexual intimacy destroyed the precarious balance of give and take acting between two leads in a film. With Sean and Elijah, it helped. There seemed to be an odd, slightly perverted connection between knowing Elijah's path to orgasm and understanding his acting rhythm. One day, Sean decided, he would write a book about that (sans names), but he was at the time too busy thinking of what was between them to put it down on paper with any intellect.

Some of their most significant moments as friends came out of their darkest moods. Sean was frequently low and self-deprecating, and Elijah humored him only half of the time. During the other half he was prone to a bit of cursing and a lot of smoking, which only led to guilt on Sean's part. Thankfully, at the end of the day, all was forgiven.

Sean stood one afternoon in the middle of a clutch of trees with the sun shining all around. Elijah wandered through the crowd and found Sean, and without a word put his chin on Sean's shoulder.

They'd not spoken since an early-morning disagreement (stemming mostly from a bad mood Sean was in) and were both feeling touchy about it, but where Sean would brood for days over one tiny confrontation, Elijah was just as eager to forget.

"You're making that face," Elijah said.

"Which?"

"The stupid one. Oh, _snap_."

Sean couldn't help but smirk.

"You are an obstinate bastard." Elijah chewed on Sean's hobbit ear for a few seconds, then stopped. "Yep. That was just as gross as I thought it would be." He paused, and put a hand on Sean's back. "Snap out of it, please. We're going out tonight and I can't stand that face and I have it on good authority that no one else can, either."

"Which would be bad, if I were going, but I am not," Sean replied. He felt like being a bastard a little longer. 

"Dude, you never go."

Sean did not want to admit that part of the reason he did not go was that they had to keep their intimacy a secret, and alcohol and Fellowship tended to make him forget how to do that. It was also annoying on some fundamental level that Billy and Dom and Viggo and Orlando could pretty much hump each other or anyone in grabbing distance and no one would notice, but if he leaned over and kissed Elijah in the middle of a round they'd be stared at like crazy people. Their snuggly behavior had already earned them many snickers and innuendo-laced nudges to the side, not because it was sexual but because it seemed romantic and private, even before they had started sleeping together. They couldn't pull it off the way the Brits could, apparently.

Besides, what could Sean say? "I want to kiss you in front of everyone"? "I want to grab you and put you on my lap and hold your hand and dance with you in the middle of a crowded floor"? "I want to treat you like my lover and have my wife not find out and have everyone not care"?

As usual, Elijah read his mind. _Little shit_ , Sean thought, fondly, when Elijah said, "They don't care. Bill and Dom and them. You know that, right?"

"Do they know?" Sean asked, lightly. If Elijah said yes he would have probably had three panic attacks on the spot, one right after the other.

"Do I look fuckin' stupid?" Elijah's hand traveled, stopped at the small of Sean's back. "No. But if we hugged or kissed or whatever, no one would give a shit. Billy kisses everyone."

"We're not them, though. It's different."

"Only if you want it to be," Elijah said, and drifted away. Someone had called his name and he craned his neck in their direction. "I'll pick you up at nine."

He disappeared into the throng and Sean watched him go, sighing.

*

By midnight that night, Sean had realized that he was wrong. The primary reason for him to not go out with Elijah was because Elijah always wanted to dance and he and Elijah could not dance. At all. It was sort of painful.

Granted, no one they worked with was that great at it, either, but they were definitely the worst. Elijah looked even more ridiculous because he seemed to think that if he intentionally looked ridiculous it would negate the result. It didn't, but everyone loved him anyway, so maybe he was onto something. 

Strobe lights and mixed drinks were not Sean's idea of an exciting night. He was more of a beer and cigar and pseudo-intellectual conversation in a smoky pub sort of guy. He even had a secret love of ballroom dancing that he had only confessed to Christine; this club shit was nowhere near anything that classy.

He felt as if he truly had no groove whatsoever to get on.

After about an hour of on and off crazy spastic wiggling, he dragged Elijah to the bar and managed to get between an orc stuntie and a makeup guy to secure the bartender's attention. Elijah was grinning from ear to ear and shiny with sweat.

"Ooh, gimme, gimme. The fuck. Didn't we ask for spiced rum?" he asked, plastered against Sean's side.

"That one's from Dom, I think," Sean snickered, and from down the bar Dom gave a shout and a wave, then a wink and a blown kiss.

"Fucker," Elijah murmured, and sucked down the horrid florescent drink, making lots of faces in the process. "Gayest bar in Wellington. Bless." His arm was around Sean's waist, and he entangled them even further when he leaned over to leave his empty on the bar. His other arm went around Sean, which left them belly to belly. Sean could feel the others watching them.

"I can hear your brain over the music." Elijah's face was close. "It makes my teeth hurt, quit it."

"Sorry."

"Did I not ban that word? Did I not say I would charge you five dollars every time you apologized for something?"

Sean kissed Elijah before he could think about it. Cheated, Elijah had. Putting that mouth so close was pretty much asking for it.

"Oh, look, the world didn't crumble," Elijah said, wrapping his arms around Sean's neck. "Or, you know, they didn't notice. Which sort of proves my point, if you recall."

Sean laced his hands behind Elijah's back. "So. We've made utter fools of ourselves. We have consumed girly drinks. I have kissed you for all of Wellington to see. What else will this magical night offer up? If you say 'more dancing', I am leaving your ass right now."

"I have a prediction," Elijah said, and much to Sean's surprise, tugged him toward the dance floor and kissed him again. "You will become very drunk."

"Bullshit. I have a high tolerance level."

"No. No." Another kiss. Sean heard the Fellowship cackling and cat-calling behind them; they were now in much clearer view. "You will get so drunk--so pathetically and unattractively drunk--that I will be obligated to spare these fine Kiwis your presence by taking you home."

Sean felt heat creep along his limbs and then trickle inward and downward, as was its wont. How the hell were they supposed to make leaving together subtle after that display? 

But then Elijah scratched a fingertip up and down the front of his jeans and his brain died. He began to protest, but Elijah just took them deeper into the crowd, keeping Sean's back to the bar and no space between their bodies. It was dark enough so that no one would notice what was going on, but it still set him on edge. In more ways than one. 

Elijah's hand was cupping him, then, executing a maddeningly slow rub with the soft part of his palm and fingers. "Come home with me," he requested, oh so sweetly, curling his fingers and squeezing, up down up down.

They usually didn't talk much at this stage. It made Sean's skin burn, embarrassed him, and excited him all at the same time, even though he felt incapable of returning the words without feeling ridiculous. Sexy talk was not his strong point and talking in general failed him when he and Elijah came together like this.

"We can go out the back way," he said, surrendering completely, and was rewarded with Elijah's gap-toothed grin, streaked yellow red green blue and sparkling.

*

Sometimes, they were extraordinarily stupid.

At a small dinner party the Astins threw for unit three's crew, Sean and Elijah met in the guest bathroom by accident. The tangle that followed said meeting was, on the contrary, quite intentional. It started with Sean fixing an incorrectly slotted button on Elijah's nice crisp dinner shirt. Five seconds later they were kissing.

Sean pushed and Elijah pulled. The room was really fucking tiny so Elijah grunted and, in typical bendy Elijah fashion, sat on the edge of the sink and put his calves around Sean's body. It was convenient, you see. Sean grinned and dived, putting their mouths back together. 

It had taken quite a while to work the kissing out; Elijah was a novice and Sean had no experience kissing men, but they had by then worked it out to a delicious degree. Sean fell into stupors during lulls in filming just thinking about it; Elijah's soft, hot mouth all full of wetness and tongue, fitting itself a million different ways against his own. 

In the bathroom, Sean nipped and lapped and puckered until his head was spinning and his cock throbbing. He fancied he could stand there until all his guests went home, until Christine went to bed, until he was needed on set that following Monday, just kissing Elijah's now red-rimmed lips into eternity. 

Elijah tugged his hair and then gripped the back of his neck. They parted, humid breath puffing excitedly between them, and Sean felt Elijah's nose gently nudge his. There was something painfully sweet about it. Sean felt his heart beat twice in rapid time before going back to a less painful rhythm. 

This was truly a bad idea. Sometimes, they could make out and then go back to whatever they were doing. Other times, the closeness made Sean's whole being ache with the need to go farther, to feel Elijah's body moving, begging, and coming underneath his. These instances were the hardest to deal with, because it was rare that they ever got to exploit them. It made Sean's head hurt. It made him feel downright petulant. 

As was becoming custom, Elijah could read his mind. "You could drive me home. I'd call and say--"

Every lie disturbed the surface of their sin with all the subtly of a heavy stone skipping over water. They could choose to ignore reality all they wanted, but sometimes it demanded to be noticed. Sometimes they had to admit defeat.

"I can't," Sean said. He cupped Elijah's back, feeling body heat against his palms. "I want to, but."

Elijah's face tensed. He seemed to realize that he'd pushed too hard. "Shit, sorry. It's okay, really. I'll go, you follow. Give it a few. Stop pouting. It's okay, dumbass." He smiled, kissed Sean's parted lips, and disappeared into the hall.

Christine knocked only moments later, and Sean's heart didn't slow for hours.

*

It was all too easy to leave the guilt behind once they were alone. Sean recalled one weekend, one glorious and forever weekend, when they managed to be off on location all alone. They had separate hotel rooms, of course, but there was nothing to keep them apart and no one to notice for the first time in months. The weather had fucked scheduling and Elijah had managed to get Pete to let them escape all the secondary things that usually popped up when filming itself was suspended. A whole weekend with nothing to do.

They slept for fifteen hours straight that first day, side by side in a huge king-sized bed. They woke up in the middle of the night and kissed lazily and ordered take-out. They ate in bed until morning broke through the curtains, kissed some more, and fell asleep until noon. 

"This is heaven," Elijah announced, swatting cartons off the sheets and burrowing against Sean's back. "Seriously, don't fuckin' blink, we may wake up on set."

They took turns showering, finished off the cold food, and crawled back into bed. 

The bland and somewhat sour taste of skin was more appealing to Sean than any of the dishes they'd ordered. He traced every bit of Elijah with the tip of his tongue. He became acquainted with each vein and bump along Elijah's cock, taking his time to lick and suck. He memorized every mark (there were few), every dip, every hair. They passed half the day just tasting and mapping, and by the time Sean fumbled for the lube and a condom, Elijah was squirming. The sheets beneath them were already soaked. 

Sean's mind went white-blank as Elijah's body relaxed and closed around him like a fist. All he would recall later were hours of gentle rocking building up to a frantic, rough finish that left every cell in his body vibrating. 

He would remember Elijah's hair sweated up into curls and spikes, the heave of belly between them, the slick of pearly white sloping up Elijah's chest, one hand curled lazily around Elijah's twitching cock. He would remember Elijah's face beet red with exertion and the satiated exhaustion that followed. He would remember Elijah's hands weakly grasping at him, Elijah's hips rocking softly, milking his cock until he started to go soft. He would remember pushing his fingers into Elijah's loosened body just to feel the silky, abused heat twitch around them. 

Afterwards they kissed and breathed and kissed and breathed and whispered nonsense and touched each other gently and fell asleep. They repeated it again the following day, and abandoned their seclusion only when the crew came looking for them late that evening. 

The experience stayed with Sean for months and the memory of the experience stayed with him for much longer. It was to be the only leisurely love-making they ever got a chance to enjoy in New Zealand, though neither of them knew that then.

*

After that the schedule accelerated and they went and went and went until principle filming was over, stealing odd moments and evenings here and there but never quite duplicating that fateful weekend.

Things ended, in Sean's opinion, in a way that was not as meaningful as it should've been, mostly because of the constant pressure to finish. Sean was panicky with doubt about the success of the films. 

He was homesick for California and yet at the same time had no idea how long it would take to get used to life after the movie. He felt fat and out of shape and never wanted to see another carbohydrate as long as he lived. A whole jumble of emotions, each contradicting the last, wrapped him up in a sort of depression.

They went home. 

Sean, in his heart, accepted that whatever it was between them, it was over. He was almost glad of it. His brain was full of other things, after all; there was plenty that had gone wrong financially at home. He had a lot to deal with, to plan for, and to adjust to.

And then, between movie shoots, Elijah showed up one evening in California. He dragged Sean to the darkest corner of the backyard behind the pool. He kissed Sean senseless and then dropped to his knees, making it clear that their relationship had nothing to do with New Zealand's borders.

Unplanned and unlooked for, it just sort of continued.

*

Things changed, of course. Elijah dated and eventually settled on one girl. A lovely girl, a girl that Sean knew was pretty much everything Elijah wanted. The jury was still out on whether she was what he _needed_ , but there was no jealousy in the careful curiosity; everyone, Sean included, wanted to see Elijah happy.

Still, Sean expected his and Elijah's relationship to end with every visit. 

His mind ran through images of Elijah's various arrivals. Always painted against various airport and taxi cab backgrounds. Sometimes very skinny, sometimes not so. Sometimes with loads of shaggy hair, sometimes bald. Sometimes dressed like a starving artist, sometimes dressed very sharp. 

The one thing that never changed was the happy grin that lit his face when he stepped forward and wrapped Sean in his arms.

"How's Pam?" Sean asked, traffic rushing behind him, and Elijah smiled and told him, but they still ended up in a motel that afternoon and didn't speak again until the headboard's tap against the wall had stopped and the sun had gone down. 

Sean was thinking about how ironic it was that they had more time to be alone now than they had ever had in New Zealand.

"How're the girls?" Elijah asked.

Entranced by Elijah all sweat-slick and glowing, Sean kissed him. "Great. Good." He rolled, tugging Elijah on top of him. He buried his fingers in Elijah's hair and kissed Elijah again and again, lost in the warm, wet, spent feeling between them.

It took several encounters of this kind to convince Sean that it could work, that Elijah wasn't going to call him one day and say that they had to stop. He waited for their relationship to rub against the grain of his life, but it never did. 

When they were together it was magnetic; the rest of the time it just waited patiently, content to contour itself to the curves of their unique love.

*

Sean was standing next to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

He was completely numb to the point of pain, struck still by the enormity of their accomplishment and the throb of thousands upon thousands of people crowding Wellington's streets for the final premiere of their beloved film. If he let go of his control right then and there he might have very well began to cry, but the thought of cameras recording every movement held him in check. 

He, more than anyone, had harbored doubts about this mad project--both personal and professional--but the years had effectively banished them. How much proof did he need, really? He had never been as in love with the project as he was at that moment. Selfishly, he was grateful; all of this had been given to him. It would be in his memory forever, and memory had a curiously wonderful way of downplaying the bad and highlighting the good.

Elijah came back. Sean tightened his hold on Ali. He looked into Elijah's sunglasses and his throat closed up. 

He wanted to reach out for Elijah, but felt a twitch of self-consciousness and Ali's warmth against his side. He wanted to say something meaningful, to thank Elijah for all these years. He wanted to summarize their complicated brother-friend-lover relationship in just a few simple words, to pour out all the gratitude in his soul for Elijah's professionalism and unconditional acceptance. He wanted to re-tell the story of their adventure with just a single, shared glance. 

But it wasn't in him. How could he ever put it into words?

And then--in front of the entire county, the entire fucking world, and without even pausing to consider Ali--Elijah cupped Sean's head lovingly and kissed the side of his face. Sean held Elijah with his free arm, feeling Elijah's hands beg for purchase around his neck and land, one at the back of his head and one just behind his ear.

"I love you," Elijah whispered, and Sean's eyes glazed over. "God, I love you." There were tears on Elijah's cheeks. "This whole thing, it's been--" He stopped, and pushed his face into Sean's shoulder. 

Sean only smiled as the cameras flashed, capturing the moment forever. He wondered if he'd ever see a copy of that photo. Suddenly, it didn't seem to matter what the cameras saw or what the people holding the cameras thought. For that brief, floating second, he felt nothing but pride. 

The flashes kept on. The sea of humanity that filled Sean's teary, peripheral gaze blurred to meaningless smudges of color. They needed no further display to show the world just how much they meant to each other. _This is ours_ , their bodies said. _This is ours and we've made it._

They'd made it, and Elijah was in his arms.


End file.
